<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">You may also want to consider setting up for dual boot of linux and windows if you have already paid the windows tax and you still have one or more applications that work better (or only) on windows. I've done this with just about every laptop I owned. It's been a while but the last time I looked the distros usually supported this from the install disc.<div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I have also used VirtualBox first with an online compiler class where the instructor provided a ready-to-go development environment with all the documentation, tools, assignments and test cases; and for work where I have several images for testing one of our products on different platforms.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Claude</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Apr 19, 2017, at 12:02 PM, qun li via SGVLUG <<a href="mailto:sgvlug@sgvlug.net" class="">sgvlug@sgvlug.net</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" class=""><div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492619779422_6687" class=""><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492619779422_6688" class="">I just want to get a all around Linux on the box as an alternative to my win laptop. I lean towards putting it on the hard drive.</span></div> <div class="qtdSeparateBR"><br class=""><br class=""></div><div class="yahoo_quoted" style="display: block;"> <div style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" class=""> <div style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" class=""> <div dir="ltr" class=""><font size="2" face="Arial" class=""> On Wednesday, April 19, 2017 10:51 AM, Bryan Backer via SGVLUG <<a href="mailto:sgvlug@sgvlug.net" class="">sgvlug@sgvlug.net</a>> wrote:<br class=""></font></div> <br class=""><br class=""> <div class="y_msg_container"><div id="yiv5695263317" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class="">Do you want to install it on your hard drive? Or just boot linux to try it out?<div class=""><br clear="none" class=""></div><div class="">If you want to just try a distro or two, making a 'livecd' image that is bootable<br clear="none" class="">directly from CD or thumbdrive would probably be a good starting point.</div><div class="">That would let you try out a distro without installing. Once you find one you</div><div class="">like, you could then take the next step and install it on your harddrive,</div><div class="">start booting from that.</div><div class=""><br clear="none" class=""></div><div class="">For instance, at <a rel="nofollow" shape="rect" target="_blank" href="https://wiki.centos.org/Download" class="">https://wiki.centos.org/Download</a></div><div class="">if you scroll down to the 'Variety of ISO images' section</div><div class="">you'll see a discussion of a 'livecd' and what that means.</div><div class="">If you see links on that page for 'liveKDE' or 'liveGNOME' they</div><div class="">should be bootable, runnable without installation setups, differing</div><div class="">in their windows manager (KDE vs gnome). </div><div class=""><br clear="none" class=""></div><div class="">I'd suggest you give those a try, see what you like, then proceed on<br clear="none" class="">to a real install.</div><div class=""><br clear="none" class=""></div><div class=""><br clear="none" class=""></div><div class="">A different alternative for testdriving linux distros is the download virtualbox</div><div class="">and run a VM on your system and try linux within that. That is a great way<br clear="none" class="">to test drive but requires a little more robust hardware.</div><div class=""><br clear="none" class=""></div><div class=""><br clear="none" class=""></div><div class=""><br clear="none" class=""></div></div><div class="yiv5695263317yqt0349418506" id="yiv5695263317yqt66652"><div class="yiv5695263317gmail_extra"><br clear="none" class=""><div class="yiv5695263317gmail_quote">On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 9:41 AM, qun li via SGVLUG <span dir="ltr" class=""><<a rel="nofollow" shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:sgvlug@sgvlug.net" target="_blank" href="mailto:sgvlug@sgvlug.net" class="">sgvlug@sgvlug.net</a>></span> wrote:<br clear="none" class=""><blockquote class="yiv5695263317gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" class=""><div id="yiv5695263317m_5415970882485177844yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492619779422_3909" class="">Like Ubuntu etc.? My understanding is download the distribution, get it on an USB and boot on the computer. Is the downloaded distribution bootable without further tingling?</div><div id="yiv5695263317m_5415970882485177844yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492619779422_3909" class="">Any recommendation other than Ubuntu?</div></div></div></blockquote></div><br clear="none" class=""></div></div></div></div><br class=""><br class=""></div> </div> </div> </div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></div></body></html>